Now, this fair-spoken dame, who dotes on the occult and exotic, delights in the aroma of Khalid’s cigarettes and Khalid’s fancy. And that he might feel at ease, she begins by assuring him that they have met and communed many times ere now, that they have been friends under a preceding and long vanished embodiment. Which vagary Khalid seems to countenance by referring to the infinite power of Allah, in the compass of which nothing is impossible. And with these mystical circumlocutions of ceremony, they plunge into an intimacy which is bordered by the metaphysical on one side, and the physical on the other. For though the Medium is at the threshold of her climacteric, Khalid afterwards tells Shakib that there be something in her eyes and limbs which always seem to be waxing young. And of a truth, the American woman, of all others, knows best how to preserve her beauty from the ravages of sorrow and the years. That is why, we presume, in calling him, “child,” she does not permit him to call her, “mother.” Indeed, the Medium and the Dervish often jest, and somewhiles mix the frivolous with the mysterious.
We would still follow our Scribe here, were it not that his pruriency often reaches the edge. He speaks of “the liaison” with all the rude simplicity and frankness of the Arabian Nights. And though, as the Mohammedans say, “To the pure everything is pure,” and again, “Who quotes a heresy is not guilty of it”; nevertheless, we do not feel warranted in rending the veil of the reader’s prudery, no matter how transparent it might be. We believe, however, that the pruriency of Orientals, like the prudery of Occidentals, is in fact only an appearance. On both sides there is a display of what might be called verbal virtue and verbal vice. And on both sides, the exaggerations are configured in a harmless pose. Be this as it may, we at least, shall withhold from Shakib’s lasciviousness the English dress it seeks at our hand.
We note, however, that Khalid now visits him in the cellar only when he craves a dish of mujaddara; that he and the Medium are absorbed in the contemplation of the Unseen, though not, perhaps, of the Impalpable; that they gallivant in the Parks, attend Bohemian dinners, and frequent the Don’t Worry Circles of Metaphysical Societies; that they make long expeditions together to the Platonic North-pole and back to the torrid regions of Swinburne; and that together they perform their zikr and drink at the same fountain of ecstasy and devotion. Withal, the Dervish, who now wears his hair long and grows his finger nails like a Brahmin, is beginning to have some manners.
The Medium, nevertheless, withholds from him the secret of her art. If he desires, he can attend the séances like every other stranger. Once Khalid, who would not leave anything unprobed, insisted, importuned; he could not see any reason for her conduct. Why should they not work together in Tiptology, as in Physiology and Metaphysics? And one morning, dervish-like, he wraps himself in his aba, and, calling upon Allah to witness, takes a rose from the vase on the table, angrily plucks its petals, and strews them on the carpet. Which portentous sign the Medium understands and hastens to minister her palliatives.
“No, Child, you shall not go,” she begs and supplicates; “listen to me, are we not together all the time? Why not leave me alone then with the spirits? One day you shall know all, believe me. Come, sit here,” stroking her palm on her lap, “and listen. I shall give up this tiptology business very soon; you and I shall overturn the table. Yes, Child, I am on the point of succumbing under an awful something. So, don’t ask me about the spooks any more. Promise not to torment me thus any more. And one day we shall travel together in the Orient; we shall visit the ruins of vanished kingdoms and creeds. Ah, to be in Palmyra with you! Do you know, Child, I am destined to be a Bedouin queen. The throne of Zenobia is mine, and yours too, if you will be good. We shall resuscitate the glory of the kingdom of the desert.”
To all of which Khalid acquiesces by referring as is his wont to the infinite wisdom of Allah, in whose all-seeing eye nothing is impossible.
And thus, apparently satisfied, he takes the cigarette which she had lighted for him, and lights for her another from his own. But the smoke of two cigarettes dispels not the threatening cloud; it only conceals it from view. For they dine together at a Bohemian Club that evening, where Khalid meets a woman of rare charms. And she invites him to her studio. The Medium, who is at first indifferent, finally warns her callow child. “That woman is a writer,” she explains, “and writers are always in search of what they call ‘copy.’ She in particular is a huntress of male curiosities, originales, whom she takes into her favour and ultimately surrenders them to the reading public. So be careful.” But Khalid hearkens not. For the writer, whom he afterwards calls a flighter, since she, too, “like the van of the brewer only skims the surface of things,” is, in fact, younger than the Medium. Ay, this woman is even beautiful—to behold, at least. So the Dervish, a captive of her charms, knocks at the door of her studio one evening and enters. Ah, this then is a studio! “I am destined to know everything, and to see everything,” he says to himself, smiling in his heart.
The charming hostess, in a Japanese kimono receives him somewhat orientally, offering him the divan, which he occupies alone for a spell. He is then laden with a huge scrapbook containing press notices and reviews of her many novels.
